Faye Dunaway is one of the few living true legends.
The iconic actress, known for playing tough, resentful, and demanding women, is one of the finest in film history.
And the 83-year-old continues to…
Most people remember Dunaway for her twisted cry in the campy cult film Mommie Dearest: “No more wire hangers!” She also appeared in Hurry Sundown alongside Michael Caine and Bonnie & Clyde, gaining the lead role over Jane Fonda and Natalie Wood.
Bascom is the birthplace of the Florida native actress, who has won three Golden Globes and an Emmy.
It’s difficult to discuss Faye Dunaway’s career without mentioning the film Mommies Dearest. Faye Dunaway, channeling Joan Crawford’s spirit, stunned the Mommie Dearest team when she first walked from the dressing room in the iconic role of the four-year-old actress.
The sensationalized film Mommie Dearest (1981) is based on Christina Crawford’s memoir of the same name, which details her tumultuous relationship with the late actress Joan Crawford, her adopted mother.
Dunaway was able to generate a blend of charm and fear.
On and off the set, Dunaway’s unnerving portrayal of Crawford blurred the line between reality and reviving Joan. She was so desperate that she told a Hollywood biographer, “I want to climb inside her skin.”
Dunaway either honed her method acting talents to an exceptional level or her spirit took control. In her memoir, Looking for Gatsby, she writes. Someone informed me that it seemed as though Joan had resurrected from the grave.
In actuality, the media came to believe Crawford was haunting Dunaway. “(Dunaway) appears to have borrowed it for 12 weeks from the ghost of Joan Crawford,” the Los Angeles Times said about her voice.
In a performance that will go down in history, Dunaway conveys regret. She told the show, “I think it turned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me—and that’s an awful hard thing to beat.” “I should have known better, but sometimes you don’t know what you’re getting into, and you’re vulnerable.”
Working with some of Hollywood’s hottest men, including Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Kirk Douglas, and Johnny Depp, Dunaway demonstrated remarkable self-control while maintaining a platonic relationship with her co-stars.
Only a few individuals, possibly Jack (Nicholson) and Warren (Beatty), found themselves captivated by specific items. Warren was still a bachelor at the time, although Steve McQueen was happily married. “Even if offered, I wouldn’t tamper with something like that, but it wasn’t,” she stated.
“You simply don’t,” she explained in a Harper’s Bazaar interview. You don’t because it would diminish the performance and film. “That’s my rule.”
Marcello Mastroianni, the stylish Italian award-winning actor, defied the standards of ageless beauty with her delicate high cheekbones because he was too tempting.
Her relationship with the Italian star exemplifies the art of life. She starred in the 1968 film A Place for Lovers, which Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described as the “most godawful piece of pseudo-romantic slop I’ve ever seen.” – Dunaway plays a fashion designer who has an adulterous affair with Mastroianni, a racing driver. She had a brief but intense three-year relationship with the actor in real life, which ended when he refused to leave his wife.
“I was deeply in love with him,” Dunaway revealed in a People interview. I’d never met a man like him before, and I felt quite secure with him.
She married musician Peter Wolf, lead vocalist of The J. Geils Band, in 1974; they divorced after five years.
According to a Marie Claire article from 2017, Dunaway had an affair with renowned British photographer Terry O’Neill because she was unhappy with her marriage to Wolf. O’Neill took a photo of herself reclining by the pool at The Beverly Hills Hotel, while her Oscar from the film The Network was on the table next to her.
After marrying in 1983, Dunaway deceived the public for many years, stating that her son Liam, born in 1980, was her biological kid. In 1987, Dunaway and O’Neill divorced.
Dunaway’s co-stars, the production crew, and even hotel workers accuse her of being a manipulative diva who is tough and unpredictable.
She lost her job as Audrey Hepburn in the 2019 off-Broadway production of Tea at Five for fostering a “dangerous” and “hostile” environment, and she also lost her job in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s 1994 Sunset Boulevard production in Los Angeles, California.
One of her leading men, Jack Nicholson, nicknamed her the “gossamer grenade,” and in 1988, Johnny Carson asked her, “Who’s one of the worst people you know in Hollywood?” “Faye Dunaway and everybody you can put in this chair would tell you the same thing,” Bette said with a snap. “I don’t think we have the time to go into all the reasons—she’s just uncooperative,” she claimed. Miss Dunaway is Miss.
Despite her tough, rude, and unpleasant nature, Dunaway remains a tremendously brilliant actress.
She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996, and in 1997, People magazine named her one of the 50 Most Beautiful People.
She is no longer in a relationship.
She said in a 2016 People interview that she was still open to dating. She explains, “I’m very much a loner.” “I always think that if I could find the right person, I would like to have a life partner, and I would.”
In 2022, she played alongside Kevin Spacey in the Italian film L’uomo che disegnò Dio.